Are casual gamers ruining gaming?

[minoes]

Recognizing games as art doesn't mean that developers are suddenly going to go wild with experimentation, rendering games unplayable (not anymore than they do not at least). It does mean, however, that society's opinions of games and of gamers will become more positive, which means that game developers will actually have larger client bases, so they'll have more money at their disposal, meaning that they can explore bigger projects and advance the potential of gaming in ways that they can't right now.

Yup, better games are something we all can get behind.

By the way I found this video about actual Interactive digital art;


I think this would be labeled as casual at best.

 

[ChromeAlchemist]

You know, now that I am thinking about it, it seems most of my annoyance is aimed at third-party games. Kind of ridiculous, I guess, but the Wii's third-party support is excruciatingly... well, it's just bad. But I suppose Nintendo themselves isn't doing too bad of a job, though I do think it's time they moved on from the "get non-gamers playing" stage (since they've obviously reached that goal) and got on to the "get the new casual gamers into hardcore gaming" stage.

I agree, third party offerings for the most part have been either poor, or the leftover dregs of gaming. For every Red Steel 2 (not out yet, but I'm hopeful), Muramasa, and RE 4 Wii, we get crap, and in bigger supply. Even No More Heroes and Madworld, which are lower budget titles than say, RE 5, are meant to be the Wii's "last hope". But the thing is, if you release a game with no faith in it's success, then it probably won't be successful, and probably because you didn't put enough effort into it than you should have. This article says it all, it's all truth IMO.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/going-gold/6850-Going-Gold-The-Self-Fulfilling-Prophecy

Either way, third parties need to step their game up.

Definitely agreed on Double Dash. Cool concept and all, but most of the game was just uninspired and, truthfully, I'm not the biggest fan of sitting in the back pressing the X button the whole game. Blech.

Didn't notice the new Pikmin announcement: I was probably too busy drooling at the Legend of Zelda picture.

And sure, your average casual gamer probably couldn't get everything in Galaxy, but it didn't even get difficult until like the last 10 stars. I just look fondly back to Super Mario Sunshine, where it was a challenge to get to Bowser, let alone get everything. That one's still my personal favorite.

Pikmin was pretty much uttered by Miyamoto, with no fanfare. He literally said in an interview..."we are making Pikmin". O_O

And I agree with Mario Sunshine, even if the difficulty seemed to come through frustration than anything else.

Eh, I looked at Demo Play as more of an offering to the casual gamers. As if to say, "We know this will probably be too hard for you, but just so we don't leave you out of this we'll let you just skip it, okay?" It's like showing The Matrix, then cutting out all the violent scenes so a younger audience can watch. Admittedly the option isn't required to use, thankfully, but still: it's more of a peace offering to the casuals than an indication of actual challenge.

I've had a debate about this in the past, but let's just say I consider it to be transitional mechanism. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhHu8D2oPic&feature=player_embedded]

 

[Valiance]

Yes and no, obviously. Most developers won't cater to you as much, but there's always, always some out there that will. Speaking of which, you'd enjoy Ikaruga. Let me know when you S+ rank every chapter on one credit, and I think they might be porting Radiant Silvergun to XBLA.

id recomend DoDonPachi Dai Ou Jou , Mushihime-sama Futari, DeathSmiles and radioZonde if were going down for a really chalanging shmup route here. (would list more but, that would derail this topic a bit to much.)

anyway more on topic, No gaming did not start out to cater for what people define hardcore gaming, it was designed for people to have fun, (can you really call pong a hardcore game?) if people are still having fun then it is not ruined and is not being ruined.

Well I guess there's always the Touhou series...

 

[Yukinari]

Ive seen plenty of casual players be terrible at casual games, it happens rarely though.

 

[Thaius]

You know, now that I am thinking about it, it seems most of my annoyance is aimed at third-party games. Kind of ridiculous, I guess, but the Wii's third-party support is excruciatingly... well, it's just bad. But I suppose Nintendo themselves isn't doing too bad of a job, though I do think it's time they moved on from the "get non-gamers playing" stage (since they've obviously reached that goal) and got on to the "get the new casual gamers into hardcore gaming" stage.

I agree, third party offerings for the most part have been either poor, or the leftover dregs of gaming. For every Red Steel 2 (not out yet, but I'm hopeful), Muramasa, and RE 4 Wii, we get crap, and in bigger supply. Even No More Heroes and Madworld, which are lower budget titles than say, RE 5, are meant to be the Wii's "last hope". But the thing is, if you release a game with no faith in it's success, then it probably won't be successful, and probably because you didn't put enough effort into it than you should have. This article says it all, it's all truth IMO.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/going-gold/6850-Going-Gold-The-Self-Fulfilling-Prophecy

Either way, third parties need to step their game up.

Definitely agreed on Double Dash. Cool concept and all, but most of the game was just uninspired and, truthfully, I'm not the biggest fan of sitting in the back pressing the X button the whole game. Blech.

Didn't notice the new Pikmin announcement: I was probably too busy drooling at the Legend of Zelda picture.

And sure, your average casual gamer probably couldn't get everything in Galaxy, but it didn't even get difficult until like the last 10 stars. I just look fondly back to Super Mario Sunshine, where it was a challenge to get to Bowser, let alone get everything. That one's still my personal favorite.

Pikmin was pretty much uttered by Miyamoto, with no fanfare. He literally said in an interview..."we are making Pikmin". O_O

And I agree with Mario Sunshine, even if the difficulty seemed to come through frustration than anything else.

Eh, I looked at Demo Play as more of an offering to the casual gamers. As if to say, "We know this will probably be too hard for you, but just so we don't leave you out of this we'll let you just skip it, okay?" It's like showing The Matrix, then cutting out all the violent scenes so a younger audience can watch. Admittedly the option isn't required to use, thankfully, but still: it's more of a peace offering to the casuals than an indication of actual challenge.

I've had a debate about this in the past, but let's just say I consider it to be transitional mechanism. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhHu8D2oPic&feature=player_embedded]

Oh, I have high hopes for Red Steel 2. The first one proved that shooters could be done well on Wii. It completely failed, but it at least showed that it was possible. Hopefully this one will be better. Holding out hope...

And I will say, the Game Overthinker has a heck of a lot of good points. Consider me agreeing with pretty much everything he says.

Though personally, when cheap political tactics are referred to as "using the blue shell" on the news, I will officially be the happiest man alive.